Comparison of the tafl world champions

Draganov
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Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:59 pm

Comparison of the tafl world champions

Post by Draganov » Thu Jan 27, 2022 1:40 pm

Hello, tafl warriors!
Here I will present you some statistics of the tafl world champions. I made head-to-head comparison of the games between the champions. I think this statistics would be helpful for the players who want to improve their skills because they will easily see how many games were played between the top players and will be able to search them easily in the game archive in order to analyze them.
Here is the legend of the tables:
BLUE COLOR -> the player scored better against the opponent
RED COLOR -> the player scored worse against the opponent
GREEN COLOR -> both players played against each other and the score was even
BLACK COLOR 0-0 -> it means that both players have never played against each other
2-0 TO in lightblue color -> the player has won due to time out in uncertain position (this result is not included in the total calculation)
0-2 TO in orange color -> the player has lost due to time out in uncertain position (this result is not included in the total calculation)
NG -> the player has never played against other champions in this variant

Draganov
Posts: 57
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:59 pm

Re: Comparison of the tafl world champions

Post by Draganov » Thu Jan 27, 2022 1:42 pm

Here is the head-to-head record in the Copenhagen variant.
As you can see, Casshern scored highest amongst the champions. For m surprise the second is Nath. However, his high score is mainly because he beat Adam and Crust with huge margin. Nath also managed to beat Schachus in their head-to-head meetings (scored 6:4 against him). He just lost to Plantagenet by 1 game margin. I think Nath was undoubtedly one of the greatest players that has ever played tafl. In his prime, he could beat everyone.
He was the winner in one of the strongest tournaments in the history -> a grand prix between three of the champions -> Nath, Crust and Schachus.
See for more info Grand Masters' Tournament, Copenhagen Hnefatafl 11x11 (2015-01-18, tourn. 32).
Moreover, he made attempts to systemize the game openings and develop the theory of the game. So, he deserves much more credit than he has received.

Schachus won the title in 2014 with an unbelievable unbeaten record (24 wins, no losses, no draws). He smashed everyone in this tournament. According to many players who faced him, he was the best tafl player that has ever played the game. However, we can see that he was not unbeatable. His record against Nath was not in his favour and Nath at least prove to be able to fight against him.

We can clearly see that Adam, Crust and Herjan scored worst amongst the champions. However, it does not mean that they are weak players. I think the score of Crust and Adam could be explained due to the fact that they were mostly actively playing in the beginning of the tafl revival. The theory was not yet developed and they could not see the games of the great players before them. On the other hand, Herjan played too small amount of games against the other champions to be evaluated. If he played more against them, probably his result would be little bit higher.
Attachments
champs-comparison-copenhagen.jpg
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Last edited by Draganov on Fri Jan 28, 2022 10:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

Draganov
Posts: 57
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:59 pm

Re: Comparison of the tafl world champions

Post by Draganov » Thu Jan 27, 2022 2:16 pm

In the main weak king variants Welsh Tawlbwrdd and Saami Tablut, we can see that the players didn't play many games against each other. The score of Casshern is low in the Welsh Tawlbwrdd variant mainly due to his defeat by me in the championship in 2021.
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Draganov
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Re: Comparison of the tafl world champions

Post by Draganov » Thu Jan 27, 2022 2:24 pm

Here is the head-to-head record in the Fetlar variant. I gave you this statistics mainly because Adam and Crust played many games in it. Here, as you can see, Crust was slightly better than Adam in the Fetlar variant.
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Draganov
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Re: Comparison of the tafl world champions

Post by Draganov » Thu Jan 27, 2022 2:27 pm

Here are the stats for all other variants except Copenhagen, Welsh Tawlbwrdd, Saami Tablut and Fetlar:
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other_tafl_variants.jpg
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Draganov
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Re: Comparison of the tafl world champions

Post by Draganov » Thu Jan 27, 2022 2:30 pm

Here are the stats for all tafl variants.
As you can see, Casshern and Nath have the highest scores.
Attachments
all_tafl_variants.jpg
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Draganov
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Re: Comparison of the tafl world champions

Post by Draganov » Thu Jan 27, 2022 2:36 pm

Here are some stats for the Copenhagen variant for some of the strongest players who have never managed to become world champions so far. You can see how they performed against all of the world champions in the Copenhagen variant. I ordered them according their performance. We can analyze and think about what these players lacked and how they could improve.
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other_players.jpg
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Hagbard
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Re: Comparison of the tafl world champions

Post by Hagbard » Thu Jan 27, 2022 3:44 pm

Comparison of the World Champions from another angle: their max ratings.
All Jarlar are world champion material, so OdinHimself and Jilles are added.

Copenhagen & Fetlar max rating.
2297 Casshern
2003 Plantagenet
1991 OdinHimself
1962 Herjan
1944 Schachus
1943 Crust
1939 Nath
1938 Draganov
1829 Adam
1595 Jilles

Tawlbwrdd & Tablut max rating.
2083 Casshern
1908 Crust
1907 Draganov
1823 Jilles
1751 OdinHimself
1723 Plantagenet
1684 Herjan
1563 Adam
none Schachus
none Nath

All games max rating.
2321 Casshern
2032 OdinHimself
2025 Jilles
2024 Plantagenet
2006 Schachus
1993 Herjan
1985 Draganov
1969 Crust
1957 Nath
1923 Adam

(Ratings depend not only on strength but also on the number of games played. Some players stopped playing when they were in the process of increasing their ratings.)

Draganov
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Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:59 pm

Re: Comparison of the tafl world champions

Post by Draganov » Thu Feb 03, 2022 2:42 pm

Here are the stats for OdinHimself. He is really a strong player and in my opinion the strongest player who has never managed to become a world champion yet. As you can see from the table, he was very dominant against players who are not world champions. See how he played against all of these strong players.
Compared to this stats, he scored only 31% in the cases when he faced the world champions. I think this question is interesting and we can think about this result. Why he didn't manage to fight well against the champs? Is there any psychological explanation of this situation? Or the playing style of OdinHimself didn't work well against the strongest players (Casshern, Plantagenet, Crust, not to mention myself since we played only 4 games). Probably, his aggresive style was efficient against players who didn't defend very well but didn't work against players who are good at calculating many lines and play well on pressure.
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OdinHimself_Stats.png
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Draganov
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Re: Comparison of the tafl world champions

Post by Draganov » Sun Feb 06, 2022 7:33 pm

Here are some stats for Jilles regarding his performance in the Copenhagen variant. I think he is a great weak king player (one of the strongest weak king players ever). However, in the Copenhagen variant, he is still not experienced and he played only against four opponents more than 5 games. You can see in the table below, how he performed against Holidayinnes, Alex Hnefatafl, P59xy and me. I hope he will play in the Copenhagen variant more often and will improve a lot in the future.
Hagbard wrote:
Thu Jan 27, 2022 3:44 pm
All Jarlar are world champion material, so OdinHimself and Jilles are added.
I agree with adding OdinHimself and Jilles. However, Jilles is of world champion material only for the weak king variants. Regarding only weak king variants, I would like to mention Ded Fomich and Chaolaibhne as being also amongst the top players.
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jilles_copenhagen.png
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